Hikvision DS-2CD2032 3MP IR Bullet Review

Here’s a very good low priced 3 Megapixel IR Bullet from Hikvision, with good IR illuminators, WDR, Smart IR and digital noise reduction, but’s just specs, the really amazing part is how clear and sharp the image is, how tiny they are and how well they work.

Main Features

1/3” 3 Megapixel CMOS sensor

H.264 dual-stream encoding

30fps @ 1080P (1920 x 1080) or 15fps @ 3MP (2048 x 1536)

4mm, 6mm and 12mm fixed lens

Day/Night IR Cut Filter

IR LED advertised working distance 30m

IP66 Rated Outdoor Bullet

Powered by PoE

Smartphone apps available

Overall, this is an impressive camera with very good image quality, good low light performance, well-organized menus and very, very small. The IR illuminators are bright and have good coverage. As a twist, I tested their 12mm lens which may be difficult to get.

This is a typical modern day bullet with a pigtail with a power and Ethernet jack that comes out the back of the mount. To make the install clean, you’ll need to drill a whole about 1″ diameter to slip the jack inside. It comes with a weatherproof connector should you need it. In order to take advantage of it, you need to cut the Ethernet plug, slip the weatherproof connector through and then crimp on a new RJ45 plug. This may seem like extra work, but it provides the smallest weatherproof adapter I’ve seen, meaning a smaller hole. Aiming the camera is very easy. There’s a collar along the base that you loosen and this lets you point the camera as needed and then just tighten the collar to hold it in place, very simple, no tools needed.

This is what the web interface looks like when you first log in. There’s options to take a snapshot, manually record, chose a stream and more.

These cameras come with a fixed IP address at 192.0.0.64. This can be annoying to change but they provide a tool to make this very easy called SADP.

It will find the cameras, click on the camera, it will put the parameters on the right, change it to an IP address that works in your home network, type in the password (12345 by default) and click Save.

Here’s some of the setup screens. Once you connect to the camera via a browser, you can select Network and make any finer adjustments here as well as setup DDNS or other options you may want to tweak.

The next screen you’ll want to visit is the Image settings. There are two sets of menus, Basic and Advanced. Use the Advanced settings as there are more choices.

Below are the Display Settings where you can tweak the image contrast, sharpness and such as well as set noise reduction, WDR options, white balance, exposure settings. One bit of advice is WDR is not free. The price you pay at night is more noise. The higher you make this number, the more noise you’ll see at night. I set this to about 6-10% and that’s a good balance for me. I would suggest not going over 20%. Also, I would recommend you set noise reduction to 100% as it works very well at that level.

Another question I get asked on these camera is the onscreen time and camera 1 that displays by default. Under the Advanced Configuration, Image is the OSD Settings tab. Here you can chose if you want the camera name and time displayed or not and if you do, you can drag/drop the red time or name box to whatever portion of the screen you want. One cool thing about the on screen display is that it changes characters from white to black depending on the background.

To set the time, go to Advanced Configuration, Systems and the Time Settings. Here you can specify the time zone and the NTP server. Also, the DST tab allows you to set the daylight savings time weeks and offset.

Now onto the images. I mounted the camera in the usual spot, under the eave of my garage but this time aimed it down the block as this camera has the 12mm telephoto lens. As before, you can click on the image to see the full size, 3 megapixel image straight from the camera. Also as before, I set the max exposure time to 1/30th which is a good compromise between low light performance and movement.

This is a day shot, color balance is quite good and it’s a very clear and sharp image and you can read the plate number 80-90′ away.

At night, even though this area was too far for the IR LED’s to provide much value, it did really well with low light sensitivity. There was some noise but it was not overwhelming. The people in this image were too far away to identify at night but the IR LED’s did reach out to the closest person at about 60′-70′ away but not the woman that’s about 100′ away.

I mounted the camera in my backyard. Again, with the 12mm lens it covered the narrow space well. My backyard is about 62′ wide and 15′ deep, and the fence in this image is 50′ away. This was with WDR off and shadows are dark with little detail like the wicker back of the closest chair.

I changed WDR to 20%. Now you can see good detail in the shadows, the weave on the chair for example.

I also set WDR at 50% where you can see even more detail, but the image starts to wash out, not much value over 20%.

At night, with WDR off the image looked good, just the right amount of contrast, good detail, good IR coverage, even at 50′ away, you can see the detail in the grain of the wood on the fence, in the wicker weave of the chairs.

With WDR set to 20%, it’s too much and additional noise is introduced. I find that 6-10% at night provides a good clear image with some WDR benefits.

Lastly I mounted the camera indoors looking out a window at our lake home. Not much need for IR illumination since the lake is too vast an area and at night it’s just pitch black. So I took two day shots, the first is with WDR turned off

I set WDR at 9% as I found that optimal for me, shows a little more detail in the trees.

I uploaded day and night videos to YouTube. To see them at the full 3 megapixel resolution, you must click on the gear icon and select original quality and then click on the icon with 4 corners to see the video full screen. The video was extracted using BlueIris.

This camera is so small and has such great clarity, good color accuracy, the camera can be found for only $167.99 with free shipping from Wrightwood Surveillance, that it’s definitely worth trying one out. Last time they put them for sale, they sold out quickly but they have increased their inventory in time for this review.

The pluses for this camera are;

Price. Wasn’t that long ago that a camera of this quality cost $1,000.

Hi, thank you for the thorough and informative review. I realize that this is an older review but I was curious, how exactly is this camera setup as far as recording and where the footage is stored (cloud, on my computer, etc?) and do I need a 3rd party service to do this like Blueiris? Can I use this camera with a MacBook Pro? Also, can I download an app on my iphone so that I can view streaming video or take snapshots live?

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Hans

4 months 28 days ago

Hi, I have AngelCam.com running and also a Synology 216Play

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Ned

5 months 1 day ago

For the mac, you could check out Security Spy. I have one camera set up to a mac mini, but it would work just the same to a macbook pro, provided it is always on and has sufficient storage space.

There are differnet ways this camera record. The most common is using a hikvision NVR that does the recording. Software on a PC (VMS) can also be used like BlueIris or Xprotect. NVRs are usually easier to deal with but VMS will be more flexible. No cloud storage or service is needed for this. Technically the camera can work with a Mac but it’s limited and usually suggested to use Windows. Hikvision does have the iVMS-4500 app you can download that can show the live stream and take snap shots.

To reset the camera externally, you’ll want to unplug the power, hold down the reset button, plug in the power while still holding the reset button, continue holding the reset button for 20-30 seconds. This will reset the camera including the IP address. So you’ll have to use the SADP tool find/change the IP address of the camera. default addresses for that camera is typically 192.0.0.64. Newer cameras have a different IP address.

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Jesse D

10 months 5 days ago

Excellent review….I have two of these…hooked up the cabling, power etc now all I need to do is mount them on the outside wall of my home. Anyway you can do a quick install guide on that?

Hi Jesse,
I do hope to start including install guides or videos.
In general the bullet you have should be pretty straight forward to install. There’s three screws to mount the camera and then you’ll adjust the where the camera points, then tighten down a screw so it doesn’t move. If you have any specific questions or concerns about the install, let me know and I’ll try to help.

Hi,
I realized that if I set the day/night switch to automatic I cannot set the image settings separately. But the settings which is good in the day time is not good in the night time and vica versa.
What is the good solution?

This is one of my hopes, that they’ll add the ability to set the “Switch Day and Ni…” mode to match the Day/Night switch of the camera instead of just schedule. Until then, you have to change this to schedule and just have it set to the time that makes the most sense. Then you might have to adjust it throughout the year. Not idea of course.

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runa

1 year 29 days ago

I have a DS-7604NI-E1/4P and is connected to four DS-2CD8253F-EI(Z). i replaced one of DS-2CD8253F-EI(Z) with DS-2CD2032F-I(W) giving same ip. but the nve is not detecting the new camera. what was the the problem?

Have you tried deleting the camera from the NVR before connecting the new 2032? I would delete the old camera then add the new camera this way. If that still doesn’t work you might need to go in an manually add the new camera.

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runa

1 year 21 days ago

I couldnt delete the existing camera (The delete option is showing a “-“). If I add new camera manually it shows “Cannot add new camera”

You should be able to select the camera to delete it. Are you using the web interface or a monitor connected directly to the NVR?

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Srinivasan M

1 year 2 months ago

I just want to take 2 images simultaneously from 2 different IP cameras and store it in a required location of the PC folder.

How can this be done using HikVision DS-2CD2032-I model?

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Srinivasan

1 year 2 months ago

I installed the latest version “v2.3.1.3Build20150416” of iVMS-4200 from your website and got error message when trying to capture the snap shot automatically through Continuous or even triggered at an interval of 1000ms.

I have not seen those yet. Looks like it has edge storage and wifi. I’d be a little scepticle if it’s not on the Hikvision site and it’s odd to upgrade an older model when the new models are now 4MP and 2MP.

I don’t know much about them yet though other than the added SD card slot and wifi option.

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Gnart

1 year 4 months ago

Newbie here. Just received my first Hikvision DS-2CD2342F-IW from AliExpress brown box to play with. It came with 5.2.5 build 141201 Multi-language menu firmware. The serial number had CCCH (Chinese) in the string. I telnet and issue the command “prtHardInfo”. It showed the language = 1 (English/International). The login.js was not been hacked (per Arden/YouTube). I dumped the XMLSchema and it showed

–
english

If prtHardInfo and XMLSchema are correct, would it be safe to presume that the cam is an English/International (even with a CCCH in the serial number?)

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Alex

1 year 2 months ago

“The login.js was not been hacked (per Arden/YouTube)” … what do you mean, is this a security problem with the chinese models ?

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Whelan

1 year 2 months ago

He means “hacked” as in modified.

I’d point you to the youtube vid of the Arden dude demonstrating his method of sidestepping the language problem, but it seems to have been taken down.

I have the same issue, they are much better with a light source. On the one of my house, my neighbors side provide enough light for my side door. On the other side my driveway is totally dark. I am investigating installing solar motion lights.

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Hans

1 year 4 months ago

please provider sample images and also screenshots of config

also interested in the 4mp version

what did you pay 4 yours ?

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Dustin R

1 year 4 months ago

I bought 5 of these in the 4MP variety and have been trying to get them to work properly but they look like garbage at night no matter what. I have tried all of your settings listed here. They look beautiful during day time. I am running them off of FS116P netgear poe compliant switch. I have many sample photos i could send if thats helpful. It looks like an image overlayed with 1980s TV snow.

Do you have ANY other suggestions? I’m at the end of my rope here.

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Mark

1 year 3 months ago

I have the 3MP version for my driveway, which is 20meters in lenght and 4meters wide. 10 meters away from the camera is a light source at the house door and 20meter away there are street lights. Yet the camera is not good enough at noght to the point, where you can recognize anyone – regardless of setting.

Hi to every single one, it’s genuinely a good for me to go to see this site, it includes helpful Information.

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Brendin

1 year 6 months ago

I have the DS-2CD2032-I and a Dahua NVR4216. When viewing realtime either single or 4 cameras at once the video is really smooth on the nvr. However if I use any other view with more cameras on the screen the video will start out smooth but will gradually become choppy like it is dropping frames. I am thinking that these smaller views may be using the substream? I have played with all the settings on the substream for the cameras and can’t get them smooth. If I use the web client the video is smooth for all of the cameras. I think this is because it is using the main stream. Has anyone else seen this behavior on the Dahua NVR’s?

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Hi, I just bought a DS-2CD2032F-I Hikvision IP CAMERA from AliExpress.
Firmware V5.2.5 build 141201 is multilanguage and all works fine.
Just a problem: ezviz cloud can’t detect the camera online and it isn’t possible to add it manually.
Any idea? Perhaps a firmware troubleshooting?
Thanks, best regards
Alberto

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Mike

1 year 8 months ago

I posted a comment yesterday but doesn’t show. However, I have a Swann NVR 8 ch with 4 cameras model NVR8-7200. The cameras are the same with Hikvision 2032. I would like to add two more cameras to the NVR. The problem is that I can not find them at Costco Canada anymore and as I red it seems they discontinued that model swnhd 820. Did anyone connect/add Hikvision camera to Swann NVR? I know I have to do some changes in camera setup. Thanks

If anyone is interested I have been testing my jpg capture, archive upload and timelapse software IPTimelapse with the HIKvision DS-2CD2032-I. It works well and it might be useful to you. The capture string to use is rtsp://IPADDRESS:554/Streaming/Channels/1 The website for download is iptimelapse.com

-Mike

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Mike

1 year 8 months ago

I got a “Swann 8-channel HD NVR with 4 HD 1080p Camera Kits NVR8-7200” from Costco last year. The system came with 4 cameras. Everything installed and works perfectly. Now I’m looking to add more cameras (two) to this system. Did anybody tried to add this camera “Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I” to Swann NVR? I did some changes into the cameras (the swann ones) directly through the NVR. I would think shouldn’t be a big problem to set the Hikvision. I appreciate any help.
PS: I would buy Swann cameras but they don’t sell them anymore at Costco (Canada), they still have the two pack at Costco.com

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Chris

1 year 8 months ago

Just so everyone knows, I was having trouble with a new 2032 bullet using the “new” IVMS 4200 with a MAC running 10.10(Yosemite). It wouldn’t allow me to modify any settings, with a failed message. After installing every version of IVMS 4200 out there I could find, I finally found one that worked and it’s V1.02.01.03. I downloaded it from the overseas website http://overseas.hikvision.com/en/Tools_84.html#prettyPhoto

There’s recently been a ds-2cd2032f-i released in China. It has an microSD card slot as the plus and it has a rigid pigtail, a few inches long as a huge negative. I would not recommend it as it may be more difficult to install.

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Nick

1 year 8 months ago

If we’re talking about the same model here.

It has the sd/tf card and it seems to have a non rigid pigtail. It also seems to have a wps button somehow oO

That tube in the pigtail is rigid. It would be difficult feeding that into a wall unless the wall was completely open like an attic.

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Nick

1 year 8 months ago

Thanks for the reply. Sorry bit of language barrier issue here. By tube you mean the white part where the chrome rod fits in that’s behind the camera? Sad if it’s rigid, it looks a LOT like my webcam in that I release the ‘screw thingy’ behind the white tube and can rotate/tilt the camera (there’s a ball at the end of the chrome part).

Did they not change anything about the naming of this ‘new’ model? I feel like my 2 cams have that same model name down to -I at the end.

The wire behind the camera for Ethernet. It has a rigid piece that will make installations more difficult.

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Ivor

1 year 8 months ago

I have a DS-2CD2032-I with a 4mm lens. The nightvision view is very grainy, unlike the samples in the review from one with a 12mm lens. Is this solely a consequence of the lens difference or do I have some incorrect settings causing the graininess?

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AG

1 year 8 months ago

its my belief that these cameras all need a secondary IR if you are using 6 or 4mm lenses. The area to cover is too wide for the underpowered IR built in. I got some great LED IR from Wrightwood that solved all my horrible night PQ issues.

Could a series of options set and situation. By situation I mean if it’s aimed into sky or a very distant object, it will try and see that at the expense of noise. In terms of settings, check the settings I used in different screenshots I took.

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Someone

1 year 9 months ago

Has anyone updated the firmware to 140721? Can you confirm if the MJPEG stream supports a basic HTML montage page like the one here:

NCC is right on this. Viewing HD at 15 – 30 frames/second is reconstructing a lot of digital pixel action x the number of HD cameras you are viewing.

I have 4 HD cameras connected and 6 standard def cameras. I tried viewing on a 3mhz core 2 duo Mac from several years back running Win 7 pro under VMWare… and got very unsatisfactory results, hesitation, gaps and jumps in the picture…

What is working now and reasonably well is a PC configured for HD video:

Recording does not use much CPU power, displaying cameras does. A typical current 4th gen i7-4770 can see about 8-10 cameras at full resolution/frame rate before getting close to 100% CPU. Use an older and slower PC and it could be at 100% with one camera. I’m not that familiar with IVMS-4200 but see if there’s an option to use the sub stream for live viewing.

Using a 12V PoE adapter has a higher degree of damaging your camera, that is not a valid standard and certainly not designed for that camera. The camera takes the 802.3af standard PoE injector that is 48V. You can either get an injector if all you’ll ever have is one camera or buy a PoE switch. I like Zyxel switches because they are capable of full power on each port. This is a good injector, this is a good switch.

I measured the pins of the ethernet cable. I can measure 12V between the 4-7 & 5-8 pins, so in my opinion it should work. But the camera is not switch on.

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Whelan

1 year 9 months ago

Assuming those are the correct pins, POE is nominally 48vdc.

But it’s not always as simple as placing a meter across the end of a cable – if the device supplying power is reasonably intelligent (like a switch for example), there’s usually a short negotiation with the device to be powered (camera) to establish its POE status, power class etc. In order to get a realistic voltage measurement in these cases you’d need to breakout the cable at some point in the middle while the supply device and camera were connected to each other.

‘Dumber’ devices like cheap POE injectors etc. will often skip all this and just blindly supply 48v no matter what, so it’s something to be aware of.

It’s not issues as much as limitations. You can’t use large disk drives, not sure what size breaks it but people have worked around it by creating smaller partitions or using disk quotas available on their NAS. Then it still may think you have a larger drive than the partition shows, so you have to delete the files manually as it could fill up and stop recording.

You can’t because each camera is different with the same mm lens. For example, I’ve seen 4.1mm lens on the Bosch that has a wider field of view (FOV) than a Hikvision camera has with a 2.8mm lens. But here’s practical advice. The wider the angle, the more stuff you see, so the inclination would be to see as much as possible. But there’s a catch, the more a sensor sees, the more spread out the pixels are, the less detail you will see, less pixel density. If you are trying to identify someone or read a license plate, then the wider angle the lens, the closer the person or plate has to be. With Hikvision and the 2.8mm lens, I can identify someone at about 15′, with the 4mm about 25′, with the 6mm about 35′ and with the 12mm about 70′. What I do for typical suburban house is have a 4mm camera overseeing the driveway. Then use 12mm facing each direction looking down the street. Sides of homes I use 6mm or 12mm because they tend to be narrow.

It’s the exposure settings, the default is 1/30th of a second, the faster you make it, less motion blur, but less low light sensitivity. Most of my cameras are set to 1/30th. You can go as slow as 1/15th for capturing walking speed and I have one set to 1/200th for capturing license plates at night

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deejaa

1 year 10 months ago

When I use the iVMS-4500 APP ony my iPhone. Do you know if it is possible to display the current BITRATE i’m watching the stream in ?

I’m curios on how many KBPS the stream is operating in.

I have in the camera itself configured it to 2048*1536 (frame rate on 20)with max bitrate at 12228 kbps.

I have not seen that option on that app. Milestone XProtect for me does show that info on their management app, but not on my phone. It’s likely using the sub-stream on your phone anyway,

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deejaa

1 year 10 months ago

Newbee question:

When the camera is in NIGHTMODUS , the IR LIGHTS are shining red. This means the camera is easy spotted outside. Is there somehow possible to turn off the RED LIGHTS , and still be in night modus? Or are the RED LIGHTS something that is not avaible to turn off ?

Yes, you can turn off the IR LEDs. Go to Advanced Configuration, System, Service and uncheck Enable IR Light. You may have to reboot the camera for it to really work. Also, you can put the camera in Day mode under Image, Day/Night Switch and it will stay in color without IR lights.

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deejaa

1 year 10 months ago

Thanks for answer!

By deactivating the IR-LIGHTS , is that the same as deactivating night vision completely?

Just to light the area up so you can see at night. If you have other lights sources, you may not need it. The camera will still go into night mode, meaning it will switch to B&W and the IR filter will move out of the way allowing for you to use IR illuminators.

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Lewis

1 year 10 months ago

Does Milestone XProtect run on Macs? For security and stability, that’s all we use,

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Ned Everitt

1 year 10 months ago

For the mac, you could check out Security Spy. I am running it on a macmini server recording 1 of these cams.

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NedE

1 year 10 months ago

You could check out Security Spy. I have it running on a mac mini server with 1 of these cameras. I don’t have any idea how many it could reliably support.

The software does not run on Macs, but you can use Safari on a Mac to access to the client as I do with my Mac Air I use for travel. There’s some NVR software that runs on Macs but your choices are very limited. For example, Sighthound runs on Mac, and is very clever NVR software with analytics capabilities, but is CPU intensive. Xeoma is another one to look at for the Mac, have not tried it myself, but some readers have and use it. It’s hard for me to test NVR software on my Mac because it’s limited SSD drive on the Air. Of course you can run Fusion or Parallels on a Mac with Windows to run commercial grade solutions like Milestone, ExacqVision or Avigilon. I’ve run Milestone on Windows for a few years for different accounts and have never had a Windows related outage. Also, if it’s important to you, the integrated smartphone/tablet experience is key as that’s how I view the cameras most of the time, so you if you trial the software and most offer decent trials, test out their apps, like viewing recorded video from yesterday and also see bandwidth, like is there… Read more »

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VetKing0909

1 year 10 months ago

I finally picked two of these up, and they are by far 100000xs better than my old crappy foscams.

I just had a quick question, do you utilize Synology Surveillance station at all, if so do you find it more grainy on the foscam than viewing from the actual camera at night?

I have been using Nx Witness from http://www.networkoptix.com/nxwitness-overview/
Have been very happy with the support, speed, ease of use also not locked into one camera vendor… and the fact that the system also runs on Linux. Free upgrades no yearly subscription.

Haven’t tried to update it to the latest firmware yet – it ocmes with the 5.2.0 firmware with mulit language. I dont know if the multi language will dissapear if i upgrade it to the latest 5.2.3 – But before I try, is it worth the risk reason to upgrade the firmware to 5.2.3 any way ? I dont know what the changelog is from 5.2.0 to 5.2.3. You guys know specific?

I have also thought of buying a mini NVR. Looked at this one from the same seller:

There’s not much difference between 5.2 and 5.2.3, some menu changes. To check to see if it’s a hack Chinese camera before applying firmware updates, telnet into the camera and issue the prthardinfo command. If language = 2, then it’s Chinese, if 1 then English/International.

I have not had success in using generic NVR’s like that where they rely on ONVIF standards to work.

Thank you for your detailed tests of the cameras these are really usefull for me.
I would like to buy a Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I camera soon on the ebay from China.
As I could see that is about $100. It is a really good price, I think and because of that I cannot decide it is a copy or genuine one. What do you think about that?

Will I use it with my camera what do you think? I asked the seller and he answered me that the NVR and the camera use ONVIF so they will be working with each other. The camera resolution is higher than the NVR has…it is a problem?

I would be cautious from eBay as sellers are in China, many times the camera has a firmware hack so if you upgrade the firmware later it can revert back to Chinese menus only and if you have to return it for whatever reason, you may be on the hook for $40 shipping via USPS with tracking to get a refund. I got one of those mini NVR’s myself, but never got it to work, so not sure if it’s worth the risk. Hikvision provides free NVR software, iVMS4200 PCNVR and if you have an old PC, that may be the least expensive choice for recording.

You can’t really put it in an housing because the IR LEDs will reflect back on the glass and blind the camera at night. But if you want to do it anyway, Pelco makes decent housings for a reasonable price.

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Mitchell Tuckness

1 year 10 months ago

I found these on Ebay for $87, I am going to make an offer of $80 and see how it goes, sounds like a great bullet camera for the price you can get them at.

Careful, many are direct from China with no chance of returning them as shipping can cost as much as the camera and they have hacked firmware, next time you update firmware they will become Chinese only.

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erth64net

1 year 10 months ago

Chinese-only is both true, and it isn’t. I’ve installed the english firmware on Chinese models via the TFTP upgrade method, without issue.

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Ritz

1 year 9 months ago

erth64net, did you buy your Chinese models on ebay? Could you provide a link to which seller you used? Just want to make sure I reduce my risks…

Always a risk buying from China as it could cost more to ship it back if there’s a problem than the camera is worth and takes forever.

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Mitchell Tuckness

1 year 10 months ago

Yeah, you’re right, but for $80 I can’t really go wrong. I have dealt with a couple of vendors from China on cameras and the one I had a bad product from actually returned an item I purchased for free. They sent me a replacement item and a mailing label that paid the return shipping, just like the old cross-shipment policy Maxtor used to do for their Hard Drives. You don’t even get that kind of support in the US anymore, though Seagate still does it, if you pay for it. It took forever, but they followed through with honoring their support agreement. As for this auction, they accepted the $80 offer, so I think this will be a good deal all around. Even if it is only in Chinese, I have other HIKVISION cameras, I can just compare menus to the English one or run it through Google Chromes translate feature, that might work. Another thing I have encountered on my dive into security cameras is that finding the right firmware is difficult for me anyway. Some cams are International Versions, some Chinese, some European models and the firmwares seem to be hidden all over. I think I have… Read more »

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deejaa

1 year 10 months ago

Hello,,

Thanks for review.

Is it possible to connect this camera to some sort of CLOUD provider video recorder?

Do not try to install Hikvision firmware on their OEM cameras. First, it should not work, it should reject it. Then some people forced it with TFTP method, again, not a good idea. I purchased a Hikvision OEM camera and put Hikvision firmware on it and could not log in after that. Since then I think they block it up front.

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Goldbug

1 year 10 months ago

Hi again,

after considerable research, it is hard to find reasonable price for this hikvision 3MP camera in Canada.
I would prefer to source them from an authorized dealer in Canada where I can go back to if I have problems. Dealing with a retail store in the US is not convenient.

distributors retail them way to expensive (C$300 each)

While looking I came across a TrendNet 3Mp Camera which looks somewhat similar?
do you know this camera. (TRENDnet TV-IP310PI)

the good thing is that it is readily available in Canada (Staples, and others) and cost about C$200, not a lot more expansive than at Wrightwood Surveillance.

also comes with a 3 year warranty.

do you know this camera?
if so is it a good alternative to this hikvision?

Trendnet OEM’s Hikvision, so same camera. I prefer the Hikvision original cameras and OEM’s tend to be limited in which modes they carry, but in your case it makes sense.

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Tim

1 year 11 months ago

Thanks for the reply, the new camera came with firmware 5.2, the first one was 5.1.6, should I be setting something else to make it work or should it work right at the port tab in advance configuration-network? If I can’t make it work I will remap in my router.
Thanks, Tim

It should work by changing the port numbers and always has for me, except for the bug in 5.1.6. Must be the reason the pulled it off their website.

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Tim Scullion

1 year 11 months ago

I have a 2032, my second one I’ve tried, and to access it over the wan everyone recommends to change the http port from 80 to 10000 or more. Every time I try this the camera needs to reboot, and it just hangs there, never to reboot, then I must reset the camera and adjust all my settings again. I cannot change the http port 80, two different 2032’s. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks

I believe this was a flaw in firmware release 5.1.6 is that’s what you are running. You can upgrade to the latest firmware release that does not have this problem from Hikvision.com’s website or don’t change the port numbers at all on the camera and use the port mapping feature of your router to say map port 80 on the camera to an external port number of 10000. When at home, use port 80, when remote use port 10000.

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kevin

1 year 11 months ago

Have just received my 2032, came with default resolution in basic settings set to 1920×1080 but in the advanced settings it says capture mode 2048×1536@20fps, are these the accepted best settings. would there be any benefit to changing resolution to 2048×1536 in basic settings.
the max bitrate is set to 4096Kbps, is this also a decent setting ?
thanks.

I set the bit rate to constant and 5120 for a balanced image without too much compression. The default is 1080P at 30fps, but you can chose 3MP at 20fps. I personally do not like the 16:9 aspect ratio of 1080P so I opt for 3MP to get the shape I want. All personal choice but 3MP is 50% more pixels than 1080P. Bit rate is about the same since the frame rate is slower.

IWill the 6mm lens camera work mounted on the corner of house looking down a driveway about 40 feet? Also, looking to mount a 4mm lens camera looking at the backyard 40×30.
have you installed the DS-2CD6332FWD-I fisheye camera in a home? I am thinking of placing a camera on the ceiling in my foyer.That way I can capture the front entrance, hallway leading upstairs, the hallway leads to a door to the basement. I currently have the DS-2CD2432F-IW mounted on the ceiling in the foyer. Thanking you in advance for your response.

The 6mm lens should work fine there. At 3Mp, I figure the that lens should identify someone at 35-40′

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Airbag

2 years 4 days ago

Hi,

Great review. I’m buying 2 of this camera (1 12mm and 1 4mm). Can you recommend a cheap NVR/NAS that it will work with (at least 2 bays for Raid 1) ?
I’m also looking at this cheap (amazing?) 8 port poe injector

You can get the Hikvision DS-7608NI-4P NVR, has PoE injector built in and supports 2 HDD. I would not get a passive 8 port PoE injector because you would need a switch anyway, so now you have two boxes, taking up to outlets with an extra 8 patch cables, a wiring mess.

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Airbag

2 years 4 days ago

Actually i don’t mind the extra patch cables if I can make a big saving. I was looking to buy a NAS (Synology possible) and have the poe injector I linked be intermediate. I understand the camera also works with a standard plug adaptor so that’s good too.
I also have plenty of switches and other network devices except they’re not poe 🙂

Thanks for your answer!

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Lewis

2 years 7 days ago

Has anyone compared this camera to the Hikvision DS-2CD2232-I5. To me it looks like the same camera in a slightly larger enclosure, but it looks like it has better/further IR/nighttime range? I don’t see much in the way of other differences. Thanks in advance, Lewis

Not possible, you’ll have to make a 1″ hole in the brick or run the Ethernet to a junction box, attach the camera to the lid of the box and stuff the excess wire inside the box. Another alternative is to get the ds-2cd3332-i as it has enough room under the camera ball to stuff the wires.

As for what I meant is that in order to use the waterproof connector, you need a Ethernet cable with no connector on it, slip on the collar for the waterproof adapter, then attach the RJ45 plug or in other words, the RJ45 plug will not fit through the hole in the adapter.

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Ray Samani

2 years 15 days ago

Can anyone tell me how to get the best picture at night. What settings should I adjust, so the picture quality taken, is without blur?

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B.A.

2 years 11 days ago

Re the best picture at night: Generally, most folks purchase this type of camera for security purposes. The object is to get the best picture to provide to law enforcement so they can apprehend a perp if needed. One of the things thats nice to have is the type and color of vehicle, something difficult to determine at night. Our solution was to add some lighting, 40 watt LED’s on 16′ polls. The result is much better than relying on the cameras inferred illuminators. These cameras are particularly nice as with this level of lighting you get full color, which helps in vehicle identification. The camera illuminators are turned off. Here is a link to some test video shot at night. Camera 01 is the Swan branded version of this camera. Camera 03 is the Chinese Hikvision version. Neither have been updated with any changes in firmware. Camera 01: http://youtu.be/pvHUfkeeO_A Camera 03: http://youtu.be/WbSCaao4VBE Settings, both cameras: Exposure: 1/60 sec. WDR: On with the slider 1/5 the distance from the far left. Day Night: Day DNR Level: Almost fully to the right side. Backlight Compensation: Off The shorter you make the exposure, the less blurring of the picture, but the trade… Read more »

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Ray Samani

2 years 9 days ago

So maybe i should buy some IR light, thats triggers my motion?

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B.A.

2 years 8 days ago

In my experience, this camera generates quite a bit of infrared on its own.

You can play with the exposure setting (shutter time) and see if it stops enough motion for you.

I have an IR LED array here, but do not use it as it still resulted in a black and white picture, not much different from that generated by the camera on its own. Also the IR array generated a visible low red light, looked like what a low power electric heater might put out. Not quite invisible enough in my application.

If you have the ability to illuminate with regular light, you will get a better result as shown on my you tube clips.

I’m currently writing a small, portable, tool to query day/night status, and then adjust the shutter setting in response. Once completed, I’ll share details on ipcamtalk.com

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KH

2 years 19 days ago

I just recently bought this camera and Netgear readyNAS but I’m having hardtime getting the motion enable videos recorded onto the NAS. I think the problem is that I have a 4TB HD and somehow the HIKVISION software kept telling me that the status is unitialized even though I’ve formatted it multiple times. Is there a way to workaround this limitation? Unfortunately, I’m not able to set up disk quota for my NAS share folder. Thanks.

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Ivor Durham

2 years 18 days ago

Can you say more about why you cannot set up disk quotas on the share folder? This is the solution that HikVision R&D provided and worked for me. (They still don’t see this as a problem with their software, unfortunately.)

Probably not. I have pretty much all versions of Hikvision firmware in active use starting with 5.0 an there’s no difference in what gets recorded and quality. I actually purposely use 5.1 on some cameras because the color accuracy on certain models are a problem with newer firmware. Probably due to smartphones, tablets, even Windows we got into a mode where we need to update software as soon as an update is available and I don’t know about you, but each time I do updates something stops working. With 5.2, you cannot easily go back to 5.1, a new feature, no going back feature.

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Rick

2 years 29 days ago

So I found a few DS-2CD2332-I Turret cameras in 2.8mm and will be testing one as soon as it arrives. I am interested in the WDR brightness and contrast settings for Day/Night since night optimized is much different that Day color. Are their common settings I should use or are these arbitrary based only on my perception?

The image sensor, firmware and such are the same, but anytime you go from a flat surface of glass like on your bullet to a plastic curved surface, you get reflections and such, so a some will never be as good as the equivalent bullet, but then you get vandal resistance with a dome and a cleaner appearance. The middle ground is an eyeball/turret camera because it has flat glass and a semi-vandal resistant format.

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Whelan

2 years 1 month ago

While maybe not *quite* the fully native windows solution Jane was hoping for, there’s a little freeware command line utility I’ve used for similar stuff in the past when you just want to script the retrieval of something basic via HTTP without bringing along a fullsize CURL implementation for windows.

Being a single file of 16kb in size, they don’t come much simpler or more lightweight than this, and compatibility ranges from Win 8 way back to NT4 or thereabouts. I just tried it on a Hikvision camera using the following syntax and it worked fine.

I don’t have Linux and I frankly don’t understand curl and if I did, where would you put this line? How would you do it without Linux?
I can already pull a snapshot off the camera using the following line in the browser:

This shows up in browsers on our computers here at home but when I’ve asked people with Apple products to test it elsewhere, it doesn’t work. It also means that I am exposing my username, password and IP for the camera inside the html of a webpage which doesn’t seem very smart.

Some FTP servers like NAS devices run Linux and give access too the Linux shell so you can stick a shell script in there easily. If you have a Mac, then that’s Unix, same thing. The method you chose which is contrary to what I recommended will not work with some browsers like Internet Explorer and I can see why as you are exposing the camera password to world, nobody wants to do that. Use what I originally recommended, http://192.168.1.64/onvif/snapshot, no user or password needed but camera can’t have firmware 5.2, all others are good. You can put this in your HTML with an IMG tag, does not get easier than that. But lets say you like complicated, who doesn’t. You can issue either HTTP command, yours or mine in Windows using VBScript (Visual Basic scripting language) but mucho harder than Linux, but not impossible but instead of 1 line of code, you may need 20. Curl is easy, just pass it the URL string, done in one command and I gave you the syntax, heck, if you have a Mac, open up terminal and try it (curl http://192.168.1.64/onvif/snapshot > Desktop/Jane.jpg) and a second or less the current picture will… Read more »

A server-side scripting language like ASP could find the last modified file in your directory (your latest picture) (using the fileScripting Object), then redirect the webpage to display that picture based on its name. Maybe a bit of overkill since Linux seems simpler but I am only familiar with Windows so that is what I am planning to do once I receive the camera.

Thanks, Dave. I’ve received a number of suggestions for what I want to do and am still trying to implement something that will work. I actually have a website and hosting, actually many websites and hosting, since I build basic sites, so that’s not a problem. Uploading to FTP is not a problem. It’s just renaming the time stamped files to something my web page can pick up using html that I’m working on. I’ll check out your suggestion on ASP as well as the others and see if I can learn it, but since I don’t know anything about Linux, I’m stuck with working with Windows 7. If you work out a script before I do, can you send it to me please? This has been one long uphill battle because I can build websites but I’m totally ignorant on the technical end with things like this. I’m in west central British Columbia, Canada, in a place called the West Chilcotin at the base of the Coast Mountains. It used to get down to -60F here but climate change, I guess. It’s not quite as cold now but still a bit too much for a lot of cameras. It’s… Read more »

Not for what you want to do. The maximum is 65635ms (65 seconds), you wanted it every 15 minutes and you can’t select a file name, it uses a serialized name for each image. In contrast, Axis has FTP upload of a fixed file name at intervals of minutes, hours.

If you can write a shell script or even a Windows script, this would be very easy to do. Just issue a curl command like curl http://192.168.1.123/onvif/snapshot > mypicture.jpg, then ftp that that file to where you like. Curl is part of most Linix distros. For Windows you can download Curl for Windows.

Yeah I was actually hoping for every 30 minutes to an hour. I didn’t catch that in the document. Thanks!! I have had success doing this with Stardot Netcam Se, and Mobotix M12. They both have time trigger ftp upload ability for snapshot pics. However, I’m looking for something more on the <$450.00 range for my next installation. And at around 200.00 the 2632 seemed to be just the thing. I am installing cameras in remote areas so battery / solar power is necessary so low power is a must (as well as the ability to connect to a battery and also have an Ethernet cable for connecting to gateway modem). Also temperatures get cold here in Atlantic Canada (down to -30 or -40 in the winter) so ruggedness is another factor. Actually, here is my list of needs (I hope I'm not too off topic): 1. Trigger it to take a < 100KB photo every 30 mins – 1 hour and send via ftp. 2. Operational in cold temperature (-30 or -40 to + 40 Celcius) 3. DC power from deep cycle battery (with solar panel) 4. Compatible with 3 or 4 G Gateway modem (Airlink Raven x or… Read more »

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I have uploaded numerous images to my FTP with the Hikvision 2632 from the browser using the camera software using the ‘ENABLE TIMING SNAPSHOT’ check box under Advanced Configuration> Storage> Snapshot. The time can be set to intervals of a millisecond to seconds, minutes, hours or days. I have tested it at intervals of one minute up to a half hour but am just in the process of testing it again at 30 minutes, the interval you want. The images are uploaded to your FTP under a date/time stamp such as: 192.168.1.64_01_20140924150609727_TIMING.jpg So far this has worked very well for me and to give it credit, the camera takes stunning photos. The camera is good to subzero temps and since we can go to -50, this was a necessity for me. It also has AC and is plugged into the outlet right now since I don’t have a POE converter yet. Unfortunately, I bought this camera to upload images to FTP to use as a weather cam on a web page. But because every name is different and the software will not rename or overwrite each file, I end up with numerous… Read more »

Im going to have to try to the 2632 and figure out a way to deal with a non-static image name.

Im thinking of a small script on the server side in the web page to display the photo based on the date or based on the known name (based on the date / time stamp that is automatically applied to each new image) or some other method.

This does create the issue of having a huge archive of photos if they aren’t overwriting. But I wouldn’t mind because I keep archives anyway.

If you are going to write a script, just pull the photo directly from the camera. In Linux it would be curl http:// -cameraip-/onvif/snapshot > staticname.jpg. One line command, not biggie. You can either put the script in a loop or schedule it every so many minutes, hours with cron if you have Linux.

Dahua does not have time scheduled FTP of snapshots, so not an option. Brickcom makes some interesting cameras starting with GOB that have 3G built in, just pop in a SIM card, not sure if its FTP capabilities. Mobotix does the FTP thing the best as it FTP’s a temp file, then renames it and deletes the old. This guarantees that you’ll never get a partial image, something that happens with methods where the camera FTP’s over the same name like Axis. Most higher end cameras have PoE only but you need 12V as you don’t want to incur the overhead of converting 12V to 110VAC so you can power 48VDC power injector.

This is what I would try if you have the slightest Linux skills. Telnet into a Hikvision camera (same user/pw as with browser). There may be a way to install the curl command, then write a simple script to loop every 15 minutes. The camera already has FTPPUT command to ftp a file.

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Henry

2 years 1 month ago

Hi there, i have a bullet and i was wondering if it is possible to take snapshots at 15 minute intervals on the NVR and send them via email or save them in a folder.

There’s no capability to do that directly from the camera or NVR. You can write a script to extract an image using the cURL for Windows command (google where to download it from). For example, curl http://192.168.0.100/onvif/snapshot > /Users/You/Desktop/mypic.jpg. Put that in a batch file with a say a time stamp name for each file. Then use the Windows task scheduler to run that batch file every 15 minutes. If you have Linux or a Mac, even better as the curl command is part of that. You can even get something like a Raspberry Pi, mount a NAS device and write a similar shell script and run it with cron every 15 minutes writing to the NAS.

Actually, Dave, you can upload to FTP on the 2632 without difficulty, or I can directly from the camera software, so I’m assuming you can with this model camera as well, although Network Camera critic would know that better than I do. What you CAN’T do is upload under the same name each time. Each jpg has a date/time stamp so that images uploaded to your FTP can build up on your server in a real hurry, each with a different timing name.

OK, I tested it with HTML and it works with all browser. This may make more sense than FTP as you get the current image, not one an hour old and no FTP server needed. You can grab the current snapshot from the camera this way and display it on a webpage. Just put in your camera IP for testing within your LAN. From the internet, you’ll have to give it the WAN IP or DDNS name + whatever you mapped port 80 to. This works with Hikvision firmware older than 5.2.

I checked various firmware versions like 5.0, 5.1.6 and 5.2, same limitations, sorry.

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Henry

2 years 1 month ago

Hi, I have a Bullet and i was wondering if it is possible to set up a snapshot with 15 minute intervals on my NVR which then get sent to an email address. Is this possible? or is there a way of just saving them to a folder.

Thank You

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Mark Jakobsen

2 years 1 month ago

It was something I had not thought through … because how will it go with WIFI camera, when both TV and PC using the Internet. So there’s not much internet for the camera.

Therefore, it must be PoE.

Which PoE IP camera would you choose in a similar price range, maybe a little more expensive is in order.

This camera is pretty decent. Dahua is an alternative in the same price range, for example the ipc-hfw4300s I reviewed. Factories are a few blocks apart in the same town. If you need more features, like a varifocal lens (manual zoom), the Hikvision ds-2cd2632f-i or Dahua ipc-hfw3300c are good choices. Also, many people like domes outside because of the more cleaner look and vandal resistance and I like the Hikvision ds-2cd2732f-is for that and is varifocal and has bright LEDs. If you just are experimenting with your first camera, get an inexpensive wall style PoE injector and connect the camera to your router like this one – http://wrightwoodsurveillance.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=67&products_id=318 If you prefer to go with a brand with better service and support (the China cameras are good, but service and support can be hard to get), ACTi makes a good camera, has a U.S. office in So Cal and excellent support. For example, the ACTi D32 or E32 and comparable bullets to this one, costs a little more but you get help when you need it. Also, they have free NVR software that is very good, much better than the free software from Dahua (PSS) or Hikvision (iVMS4200). If you want… Read more »

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Mark Jakobsen

2 years 1 month ago

So these cameras can upload images to a ftp server without anything else than an internet connection and a PoE switch?

Yes, you can FTP images based on an event, like motion detect, not by schedule like every 15 minutes.

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Mark Jakobsen

2 years 1 month ago

First, many thanks for your help. But I still have a few questions – hope its ok.

What I need is a standalone PoE camera that can record my driveway, day and night and do it well, so you can see some details. While it must be able to upload images to a ftp server and while I can see what it takes live via the internet wherever I am staying.

If you want to use FTP to record, the best cameras for this are from Dahua like this one HERE. It’s affordable, easy to install and will FTP video without a problem. Not a fan of FTP as it’s going to be really hard to find video as it’s just a bunch of directories and files and you’ll have to manage it as FTP does not report back when drive is full. Varifocal just lets you set the focal length of the lens, but if you know what will work, then you can chose a fixed lens which provides a sharper image anyway. The Hikvision can FTP in theory, but not good at it. The ipc-hfw3300c has a varifocal lens over the ipc-hfw3300c but it much large and costs a lot more. Audio is up to you. I live in a state that does not allow audio recording, so not an option for me. It’s also a pain as a quality outdoor microphone can cost over $100.

I have actually seen that photo before and that size, about 800×600 or even smaller would be more than acceptable at that or slightly better quality but I can’t see how you would do that with video without eating up huge bandwidth. Photo, yes, no problem. I was uploading high quality snapshots to the FTP every 10 minutes that were still only about 400 kb but streaming video? What happens if you stream at 16 seconds per frame? I didn’t even know you could go that low.

I was just in the process of changing my video settings and saw the 1/16 setting when I was notified of your posts. I’m pretty eager to see if I can get this to work. I didn’t really need a paper weight that expensive for my desk so I’m off to download Blue Iris now and see if I can figure it out.

Well, I purchased the program and tried it out. Found the camera, put in the settings and it started uploading to FTP. But it was following most of the settings from the camera set previously and not Blue Iris, no matter what I did. The only thing Blue Iris software had control of was where the images went on the FTP, not the size, interval of upload, etc. When I took the commands out of the camera software using the browser, it simply didn’t upload anything.
So I’m not sure what to do now….

Email Ken, the author, at support@blueirissoftware.com He’s good at getting to the bottom of it. Not sure you would have control over size from the software as the camera is streaming to the software. You can go down to 720P in the main stream, then control the size further using the IMG tag in HTML.

Yes, but what is the quality going to be like? The view is of mountains and lake over a distance of several miles. The camera has terrific quality and takes outstanding video and snapshots, but wouldn’t lowering the resolution and setting the frame rate really low make a pretty poor video?

If you are embedded an image or video on a website, how big where you going to make it? If you make it 1080P for example, it won’t fit in a browser window on a 1080P monitor because of the space the browser takes up. If you put any titling, text around the image it has to be even smaller. I rarely see anything more than 640×480 or at most 800×600 as a picture on a webcam page. For example, here’s one from our local mountains – http://mountaininfo.com/webcams.html doing what you want to do, which is have each camera FTP an image of a mountain area & lake every 15 minutes or so.

Hi, some time ago in searching for the right IP camera I read your review on the Hikvision 2032, liked the quality of image and purchased the 2632 because of the focus capabilities. I checked with Nelly’s Security to make sure the camera could do what I needed it to, which was upload a photo to my FTP every few minutes and their salesman assured me it would. However, on getting it set up, there is no way to make the camera upload just one photo with the same name. It has no rename capability. I’ve talked to the techie at Nelly’s Security extensively and he says their security cameras don’t do a rename and each photo has a different date/time stamp. That means I end up with numerous photos on my FTP every day with a different name. I don’t really know how to download to a webpage if the name keeps changing. Nelly’s Security won’t take the camera back and can’t help with this. Obviously I would never have purchased this camera if I had known this before hand. The techie sent me an PHP script that he found on the Internet but I have no idea how… Read more »

That’s the way they are, heard several similar complaints, one reason I only recommend buying from Wrightwood Surveillance. I use Axis cameras as I know they are able to do this, most cannot. Not sure with BlueIris, but I can check when I have time and get back to you. You can write a script on Windows or Linux in theory to get the most current image and rename it, but it requires some scripting knowledge. One thing you can do is steam live video to your webpage as I’ve described in a previous blog, which is way more interesting. The other thing that may be possible, depending on your web dev skills is to pull a current picture when the person refreshes the page using http://camipaddress/onvif/snapshot, would likely have to be done javascript and not with am IMG tag. The other way would be with an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi and issue a CURL command that writes the output to a file, then FTP’s it to your site, again, requires coding experience to setup where the live streaming video does not, mostly software setup.

I would love to do live stream but the problem is bandwidth. I’m out in the boonies and bandwidth is limited unless I want to go with really poor quality and that would be pointless because it’s all about showing the view over long distance. Which is why I was going for snapshots every few minutes.

Thank you for your thoughts. If you find out BLue Iris can do something with this, I wold appreciate knowing.

For streaming, you can use the sub-stream which you can set to lower resolution like 320×240 or 640×480 and set the frame rate for that stream really low, you can go to 1/16 of a frame per second, or one frame every 16 seconds.

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Mark Jakobsen

2 years 1 month ago

I’ve been looking at this camera for a while now, but are unsure whether it is the best buy for the price. What it has to do is to monitor my driveway, which is probably about 30meter long. It must be installed under the eaves of my garage.

It will also need to run on a WIFI /g network – 40mbit/10mbit internet connection with direct upload to an FTP server.

Would it be suitable for that or is there another camera, in roughly the same price range, that would be better?

Maybe so, but you wanted WiFi. The alternative is to get an outdoor wireless bridge. Lower end bridges available like the Ubiquiti Nanostation LoCo or Engenius has one too, maybe $50/60 each and you need a pair. Or alternatively, the Ubiquiti WiFi Pico which is a WiFi access point for the camera instead of a wireless bridge that requires a matching pair. Then you’ll need an AC outlet nearby to power the camera and to power the wireless device. PoE may be cheaper because an electrician charges a lot less to run low voltage than to put an AC outlet outdoors.

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Mark Jakobsen

2 years 1 month ago

I’m sorry, but I am fairly new to surveillance in general. I thought that when a camera was an IP camera, it was also automatically a WIFI camera. IP camera is really just a camera, you can access from the Internet, but the camera itself must, however, be connected to the router via ethernet cable to one’s home.

Am i right or?

With Hikvision DS-2CD2532F-I (W)(S) 3MP Mini Dome 2.8mm lens all I need is WiFi in my home and a power connector … yes?

Wi-Fi is used primarily by consumer grade cameras like D-link, Foscam, Logitech and such. Hikvision are more commercial grade cameras and use PoE. PoE (Power over Ethernet) is where the power is injected into unused wires on the Ethernet cable to power and connect the camera to the network. To take advantage of that, you’ll need either a PoE switch or for 1 or 2 cameras, PoE injectors. The problem with Wi-Fi outdoors with your router likely indoors is that signal will likely not be good enough to move 1080P or 3MP of streaming video without losing frames which appears like jittery video. Then there’s the issue of plugging in the power brick, having a lose wire going from the nearest outlet to the camera. PoE allows you to not only reliably connect the camera to your home network, but allows it to be powered without having a 110V outlet, so the install looks cleaner, maybe cheaper to do as Cat5 is cheaper than conduit or romex required for AC not to mention requirements outdoors for a GFI circuit, so it makes the most sense. In most cases, you may pay less for the electrician to run the Ethernet cable… Read more »

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VetKing0909

2 years 1 month ago

NetworkCameraCritic,

I have must admit have have not read every comment you have replied to, so at the risk of being a duplicate here goes.

I am looking to acquire a few network Bullet cams, i currently have 3 Foscam 8904w which are lack of a more appropriate word are horrible. With that being said, im looking to make another purchase of cameras.

Im looking for recommendation of which camera under 200 to purchase, being a Disabled vet im on a pretty tight income and I use these to monitor the house as well as the kids. I have been reading your review on this DS-2CD2032 and it seems like a solid camera. DO you have any you recommend above this.

Also my foscams randomly go offline, and no matter how many times i power it off on.. some never come back some come back on line whenever they want.

I have a few of these at various locations without any problems whatsoever. Get the lens size that suits your needs, for example, I use 12mm on a narrow side yard, 6mm on a wider side yard, 4mm for driveways, backyard.

What are you using to record now? You can use BlueIris which is pretty good for $39.99 or use the free software it comes with, iVMS4200 PCNVR. Both run on Windows.

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VetKing0909

2 years 1 month ago

I have blue iris, which works well. The cameras I have are just horrible quality and performance.

Most of my areas are pretty wide open, so i think 4mm would be best.. I do have a distances thats pretty far I would consider the 12MM for outside of that, how does the view distance compare between the 4mm and the 12mm?

In the review it shows the 12mm in different locations. I like it because many times I don’t want a wide view. I even changed the lens on one of my 12mm to 25mm to get even a narrower more close up view. Many of us start with what appears to be a good deal with Foscam when we don’t know better. So it’s a learning process and I started that way too. Keep in mind these cameras are PoE, so you will need a PoE switch to power and connect the camera. I like ZyXel because the one for 4 cameras is fanless (quiet) and does not use a power brick, plugs straight into the 110V. If you want WiFi like most Foscams, then consider the ds-2cd2532f-i like this ONE. It’s a nice little camera, small and discrete and 3-axis, meaning you can mount on a wall or in a ceiling or eave. Also, the 2.8mm lens gives you a very wide view, great for a backyard or front of home.

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VetKing0909

2 years 1 month ago

What’s the zoom like on the 12 mm I want to put it on the over hang of my two story and watch about 80 ft+ away or should I get a 25mm for that

In my review you read, there’s a picture of a Jeep driving down the street taken with the 11mm lens at about 70′-80′ away, so that would give you a frame of reference for what you want to do. The 25mm would give you a little less than half the field of view and the car would appear more than twice as large.

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VetKing0909

2 years 1 month ago

I have all of my foscams wired so ill go with a the PoE injector as it more reliable as you know.

I have looked far and wide for reviews on cameras before I purchased, sadly I didn’t find this site until last week.

Mounting them may be a little more difficult but im sure i can figure that part out.